New vaccine-scheduling study deals blow to safety fears

As what should be the final chapter of the MMR vaccine panic takes place in …

Even though one of the most prominent studies that raised the issue of vaccine safety—Andrew Wakefield's link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism—has been thoroughly discredited, the fear of vaccines has proven remarkably malleable. In addition to MMR, fears focused on a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal. Both of those have been cleared by subsequent research, but that hasn't stopped people from questioning vaccine safety. Instead, a pattern emerged: some people doubted the exculpatory research, as others continued to blame the same cause (vaccines) while casting about for a new mechanism.

One of the more recent targets of the latter group has been the recommended vaccine schedule, which calls for a significant number of injections within the first year of age. A number of people have argued that this schedule causes a response that ultimately produces neurological damage. This idea has now taken a hit from a study published in the journal Pediatrics. The study found little correlation between vaccination schedules and performance on a battery of tests of mental performance that were administered seven years later—the few associations that did turn up indicated that the prevailing vaccination schedule actually improves mental performance.

To perform the new analysis, some researchers took advantage of a cohort of children that had been organized to check on the safety of thimerosal. Seven years after vaccination, the 1,047 kids had been given a large battery of tests that measured a variety of mental processes, from hyperactivity scores to metacognition.

It turns out that not all of these children had been given the full recommended suite of vaccines during their first seven months. Nearly half of the children fell into the "timely receipt" category, while about 20 percent never received the full suite of vaccinations; the remainder got them all, but on a delayed schedule. This provided the opportunity to compare test performance among these groups.

Factors such as parental education and income were included in the analysis to control for known influences on test performance. (Parents who kept to the vaccination schedule tended to have higher incomes and education levels, which tend to correlate with many of these test scores.) The researchers performed a binary comparison between the top and bottom 20 percent when it came to vaccination scheduling, along with a multivariate analysis.

The binary comparison indicated that, if anything, adhering to the recommended vaccination schedule improved the children's cognitive development, as those kids outscored the least timely group on 12 of the 42 tests, whereas the converse didn't occur. Most of these differences vanished in the multivariate analysis, however, which suggests they weren't very robust. Still, it's anything but support for the contention that the vaccination schedule can be harmful.

The authors caution that there could be some other demographic factor that they haven't accounted for that influences the test results. Still, if vaccines were doing anything significant here, they argue that it should have been apparent. They also note that the recommended vaccination schedule has changed since the time of the study, but it has resulted in a reduced exposure to antigens during the first year of life.

There's little question that the paper was intended to put fears about vaccine safety to rest. "These data may reassure parents who are concerned that children receive too many vaccines too soon," the authors conclude, while noting that there are some very clear medical reasons to get the vaccinations early on, such as for diseases that have higher fatality rates for younger infants.

Still, I'd place the emphasis on "may" in that sentence. The antivaccine community hasn't completely given up the mercury and MMR claims despite copious evidence, and has shown a remarkable ability to invent new reasons to question the safety of vaccines as each of their prior justifications is debunked. Still, there's almost certain to be a population that is committed to vaccinations but is unsure about the recommended schedule, and this study may go a long way towards convincing them.

156 Reader Comments

These neo-luddite parents that think that everything will kill themselves and their children will be the downfall of our culture. If these people would deign to educate themselves in basic chemistry and anatomy, they wouldn't be so quick to proclaim everything hazardous.

"New vaccine-scheduling study puts safety fears to rest"? What's next from Ars, "New fossil discovery puts creationist claims to rest"? Facts won't sway these people. Evidence won't sway these people. Nothing will sway these people. The only hope is to prevent them from infecting others; I suppose one could argue that studies like this one are vaccines against infectious memes. It's just too bad that the internet negates any "herd immunity" that may develop...

It's going to take something more significant to stop these loons. As has been noted, they are entirely unconcerned with data, facts, or reality.

They aren't content with endangering their own children: by refusing these vaccines they are endangering other kids their kids come into contact with, some of whom may not have been vaccinated yet, or who may not be able to receive the standard vaccines or have otherwise compromised immune systems.

Illogical stupid people are illogically stupid. I agree with the previous posts in that this study will not silence the people who do not believe. Hell, people still pray to god get people well from diseases and disorders. It is a wacky world we live in.

So this to the scientific medical community at large, please find the cause to autism so we can tell the crazies to STFU.

My wife and I had a baby three weeks ago, and due to a complication he's still in hospital (TOF-OA for anyone who knows).

We're not only keen for him to get his vaccinations, we're going to hold people back unless they've had a whooping cough vaccination in the last ten years. The recent round of whooping cough here in Australia is lasting longer than normal in the community, and our child would be more at risk of serious problems should he catch it.

Vaccinations have a small risk, but compared to the actual diseases they prevent, it's a risk worth taking. When parents tell me their child isn't vaccinated, I ask them what would happen if no children were vaccinated. I don't even want to think of that world (but need look no further than some third-world nations for a preview).

I'm glad this study shows no real correlation. I hope more news outlets release this sort of information to counter the madness of the "no vaccine" (i.e. "rights for diseases!") crowd.

Sadly, my sister-in-law has fallen victim to these conspiracy theories, and obstinately refuses to listen to reason. And then she expects us to be sympathetic when schools are leary of accepting her son...

The thing is that you can't run away from risk. There is something that could kill you wherever and whenever. You have to look at it in terms of balancing the risks in column A with those in column B, and then braving the most promising path. Even if there was a grain of truth to these vaccine fears, it still doesn't outweigh the alternative.

Autism is a heartbreaking disease. A healthy parent does everything right and gets this distubing result.

I presume it doesn't come from God and is preventable.

Its perfectly possible that autism is the fault of the parents one way or another. Parents that have children when they older have an increased risk, certain groups of people have an increased risk. All of this points to genetic factors, and in-urtero developmental factors.

arswatcher2 wrote:

The crowd above, so quick to parrot today's medical 'truths', could do better than ridicule and giggle about stressed parents looking for answers.

No one would of even started down this train were it not for parroting false medical truthes this man started. Frankly if you don't trust this science, you can't really trust any science. This is just simple analysis of statistics, there is no lying here. If you think its lies, try and find some kind of correlation in the data that says otherwise.

Schizophrenia is very similar in that it doesn't appear to much later in life, and your parents genes play a large part, but it has the fortune of not appearing till the person is in there 20's or late teens. It just doesn't happen to line up with something people don't understand, and no longer respect, like vaccinations.

All that said, has there been a study which delayed vaccinations till after the standard onset of autism, to fully show there is no link?

There is nothing wrong with stressed parents looking for answers. The important part is to listen when those answers are given, even if they're partial (i.e. we don't know what causes autism, but we do know it isn't vaccines).

My extended family has more than it's fair share of alternative beliefs. The current reason for refusal to vaccinate is that they don't want to introduce anything unnatural into their child's blood stream - evidence is irrelevant.

My extended family has more than it's fair share of alternative beliefs. The current reason for refusal to vaccinate is that they don't want to introduce anything unnatural into their child's blood stream - evidence is irrelevant.

They cool with cyanide? I here it's great all natural cure for a life spent without the aid of modern medicine . I can understand there fear but the evidence is way against it.

I feel we should put everyone like this together in one large group. When the first disease sweeps through and seriously endangers their children they will learn the value of vaccines.

To me it's no better than the people who pray to whatever deity or stuff peppers up their child's nose instead of taking them to a doctor, if their child dies or it can be shown that they spread the disease and the parents could have easily acted to prevent that, they should be liable. I tend to hold a little bit of an extremist view when it comes to blatant idiocy of this type, but simply being a scared parent doesn't take away any kind of liability in my mind.

The crowd above, so quick to parrot today's medical 'truths', could do better than ridicule and giggle about stressed parents looking for answers.

That's a serious disservice to the discussion here. No-one is "giggling" at parents who refuse to vaccinate. On the contrary, those people put their children in a high risk category, and if enough people follow suit, we'll see infant mortality rise as preventable diseases return.

Autism is terrible enough, but seeing children die due to diseases they can be protected from is tragic.

You have no reason to presume that autism does not 'come from God', whether you are the rare godfearing Arsian or the more common agnostic/atheistic commentator in which that phrase might mean a predetermined event. In that case one might just accept the state.

Your presumption of 'preventable' is also flawed. It is better considered a hypothesis to be tested than a statement of fact upon which to make decisions.

Unfortunately, even under stress a rational viewpoint might be a better way to make a decision

Here in Australia(at least in NSW) schools can refuse to accept children without vaccination certificates and parents can be prosecuted for not enrolling their children in school -unless they home school or find a school willing to accept unvaccinated children.

These new studies do convince people who were on the fence, like myself. When my son was born two years ago, we didn't yet have this study, and the other recent one showing no statisical link, and the news of the original report's falsehoods and its author's likely conflict of interests. The original report's falsehoods are of course critical to settling the issue, but the two recent studies are helpful still. Still, I'll use preservative-free vaccines for my next son and stagger them a bit more than the standard regimen, with the general belief that preservative-free and gradual changes are generally better for the body.

Folks who are fully in the anti-vaccination camp are unlikely to be swayed, I agree. As mentioned, the irony is that they don't trust science to modify an earlier scientific report. The conspiracy part is a big part of that though, saying the MMR manufacturers and other interested parties are covering up to protect themselves. I don't believe that myself, but sadly it's impossible to completely rule out the possibility of actual conspiracies in the real world.

Here in Australia(at least in NSW) schools can refuse to accept children without vaccination certificates and parents can be prosecuted for not enrolling their children in school -unless they home school or find a school willing to accept unvaccinated children.

Really? From the NSW Public Schools website:

Quote:

A child without an Immunisation History Statement will not be prevented from enrolling. Under the NSW Public Health Act 1991, however, children without proof of immunisation may be asked by Public Health Officials to stay at home during an outbreak of vaccine preventable disease.

No need for FUD! The requirement for children to be schooled in NSW is in no way connected to vaccination policy. Don't let not really knowing the facts (to use the vernacular) interfere with forming and holding a belief, though.

I am always amazed, knowing how our adaptive and innate immune systems work, ( I interfere with them for a living) that people are so concerned about a few processed protein immunogens, and attenuated viruses in the sea of those that we naturally encounter as babes. Every new food has multitudes. Every rhinovirus/RSV/strep from the older brother is a large load at once , and designed to overcome our defenses. Vaccines are designed not to. Of course there can be problems, real german measles (and less likely the attenuated vaccine form) can cause a chronic arthritis much like rheumatoid. Juvenile onset insulin requiring diabetes is linked to both a genetic background and a viral infection but not a vaccine. Just sayin'My partner took care of one of those dead kids(healthy not vaccinated and dead) when I was up in Alton Il: "The largest outbreak has occurred at Principia College, a Christian Science college in Illinois with an enrollment of 712 students, with 128 confirmed or probable cases (113 among students and 15 among other residents) reported between January 15 and March 10. In addition, three deaths apparently related to respiratory complications from measles have occurred among students and residents at the college. Students are being required to remain on campus unless they receive vaccine or produce other evidence of immunity. To date, approximately 421 doses of vaccine have been given to students. Possible related cases have occurred in Indiana, Michigan, and New Jersey. One hundred thirty-nine students of 712 enrolled pupils had histories of previous immunity to measles. The source of the outbreak remains unknownCourtesy CDC via GoogleNL

The seasonal flu vaccine - how safe can you get? - well not this one apparently!

I'm not saying the studies or science is wrong regarding the above arguments re MMR ,etc. but there is always the possibility and I would argue the probability that the generally accepted scientific truths can be proven to be less than absolute over time and unique circumstances. This "fact" is what most parents and others who have doubts about the advertised safety of various medications are concerned about.

Even in the world of computers where we know the rules of the games down to 1s and 0s you can still have bugs and unforeseen results of logic causing catastrophic effects. I'm not saying stop using them but don't pretend they are infallible.

"I'm not saying the studies or science is wrong regarding the above arguments re MMR ,etc. but there is always the possibility and I would argue the probability that the generally accepted scientific truths can be proven to be less than absolute over time and unique circumstances. This "fact" is what most parents and others who have doubts about the advertised safety of various medications are concerned about. "

Yep. Absolutely. That's why science does this thing where it constantly self-reflects and never really claims to absolutely know anything at all "for sure." If new studies show that older, relied-upon studies were wrong, and these studies are in fact valid, then they supercede the older, no-longer-valid ones. No one's saying science is infallible. On the other hand, it's the best damn way we have of establishing anything remotely close to "fact" while still keeping the door open for new, better knowledge and studies to shine.

This problem with vaccines is indicative of a much bigger problem regarding the lack of super-basic education on topics such as the scientific method and how it functions, along with knowledge of statistics and related analysis. Arguing with people who don't understand these basics is a lot like arguing with idiots. They, just like idiots, drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

One of the most significant reasons why this study won't deal a blow to parental fears, is that the most serious fear, autism, was not included in either the Pediatrics study or the NEJM study. It was part of the exclusion criteria.

From the initial NEJM study (third sentence of the abstract): "(We did not assess autism-spectrum disorders.)"

From the new pediatrics study that used the NEJM sample with no autism in it (nine pages in, last paragraph before the conclusion): "Finally, our analyses were limited to publicly available data from the original study. Future VSD studies without this restriction would be able to assess a wider range of outcomes. These include putative vaccine adverse effects such as neurodevelopmental delay, autism, and autoimmune disorders."

Yet both the Pediatrics article and this article preface the research with concerns about parental fears of vaccines causing autism. These studies have nothing to do with autism. Is that not misleading?

so nope... these studies should do nothing to deal a blow to parents who fear that vaccines cause autism, who can read and reason.

Sadly, my sister-in-law has fallen victim to these conspiracy theories, and obstinately refuses to listen to reason. And then she expects us to be sympathetic when schools are leary of accepting her son...

My sister the the same damn way. I can't stand it. Every time I see her has some other crap to say on the subject trying to get me to believe as she does. It pisses me off so much. >:(

Who's pretending they're infallible? I'd be interested to see any cites you have to any science-literate people making such an absolute statement. On the other hand, anti-vaccinationists seem to trot out this straw man frequently, rather than engaging the actual risk/benefit calculus underlying the argument in favor of vaccinating.

If that's the case, I think Dr. Timmer should probably edit the above article somewhat. There have been plenty of studies that discredit the linkage between vaccines and autism, and Dr. Wakefield himself has recently been further discredited in England, but if it is as gingertaylor says, then this study doesn't speak to the autism fears.

again... these studies DO NOT speak to the vaccine/autism causation issue at all, but in this discussion, it seems that you have been hoodwinked into thinking it does.

These two studies are sleight of hand. They give the impression that they show vaccine safety, but they don't.

If I gave you a study that smoking didn't cause 47 different types of cancer, but buried in the fine print was the fact that that no cancers in the lungs were included in the study, you would call big time shenanigans on me.

"Autism is only mentioned once in the article as background info. The study focuses on mental performance according to his write-up. Or are you guys talking about some other John Timmer article? "

Nope... this one. Timmer wrote: A number of people have argued that this schedule causes a response that ultimately produces neurological damage. This idea has now taken a hit from a study..."

The neurological damage that is being argued to be caused by vaccines is autism spectrum disorder. That takes NO hit from this study.

You seem to be the only one who has noticed these studies are not about autism, but merely a study of small variants in neurotypical children.

The vaccine/autism theory is that there are a genetic subset of kids vulnerable to vaccine injury. For all practical purposes, they took anyone who might be in that subset, sent them down the hall to the special ed room, then tested all the typical kids to see if vaccines harmed them? The kids tested were the ones that no one was worried about in the first place.

The theory is not a sliding scale, more vaccines a child gets, the more damage done... it is that two children can get identical schedules, one is fine and the other falls off a cliff.

The children who fell off the cliff have been left out of these studies.

Autism is only mentioned once in the article as background info. The study focuses on mental performance according to his write-up. Or are you guys talking about some other John Timmer article?

We shouldn't be too critical of JT, but the article includes the following gem:

Quote:

The binary comparison indicated that, if anything, adhering to the recommended vaccination schedule improved the children's cognitive development, as those kids outscored the least timely group on 12 of the 42 tests, whereas the converse didn't occur. Most of these differences vanished in the multivariate analysis, however, which suggests they weren't very robust.

... while the study says ...

Quote:

There were no significant differences between the 2 groups for any of the outcomes in multivariable analysis.

... ie , comparing the most timely and least timely groups: data on non-vaccinated children is too sparse (0.6% of the study group) unfortunately.

gingertaylor wrote:

The vaccine/autism theory is that there are a genetic subset of kids vulnerable to vaccine injury. For all practical purposes, they took anyone who might be in that subset, sent them down the hall to the special ed room, then tested all the typical kids to see if vaccines harmed them? The kids tested were the ones that no one was worried about in the first place.

Interesting argument. The study doesn't test this hypothesis (may be no fault of the authors, it likely wasn't designed too) and explicitly does not test wrt autism and autoimmune disorders... obviously it shouldn't be misrepresented. The study title itself is clear enough, but out-of-context quotes and poor paraphrasing will muddy the waters.

do you people realize that a number of diseases are making a comeback because parents are not vaccinating?

some of these diseases are really terrible. if a parent sees their child develop meningitis or encephalitis or any number of other afflictions, the regret that it could've been prevented by vaccination is far greater than some scare based on unfounded science.

and parents should really learn the science behind vaccination before looking for all the side effects. because if you understand the science, you understand the possible side effects.

From the paper, regarding the two associations mentioned in the coverage:"Timely vaccination was associated with better performance on 12 outcomes in univariate testing and remained associated with better performance for 2 outcomes in multivariable analyses."and"Timely receipt remained indepen- dently associated with 2 outcomes in multivariable analysis (Table 3). Chil- dren who received their vaccines on time scored 1 point higher on the De- velopmental Neuropsychological Assess- ment (NEPSY) speeded naming test (mean: 27.4 [SD: 8.12]), which requires rapid access to and production of recur- ring colors, sizes, and shapes. They also scored 2.7 points higher on the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence perfor- mance IQ (standardized mean: 100 [SD: 15]), which assesses block design and matrix reasoning."

As for the autism association, the children did not undergo a diagnostic workup for autism, but the extensive testing covered a variety of behaviors that are typically affected by ASD:"these include assessments of speech and language, verbal memory, achievement, fine mo- tor coordination, visuospatial ability, attention and executive-functioning tasks, behavior regulation, tics, and general intellectual functioning."

So, although the tests weren't specific to autism, they should have picked up many of the issues that are associated with the spectrum of disorders.

This article is completely ridiculous and bunk. So, what this article is saying is, of all the kids that were vaccinated, the kids that remained on schedule are smarter than the kids that strayed from schedule.

Nowhere does it talk about the kids that have never been vaccinated. The study result *in no way* makes a blow to vaccination fears.

I suggest Ars Technica remove this article due to it's tabloid-leaning qualities.

Actually, I would a lot parents who wave the antivaccintaion flag can't reason and read. You have people who trot out material data safety sheets like its an absolute flag of health efficacy. They are completely unware that its for industrial applications and rather inocous chemicals like Nitrogen can be classified as more dangerous than thimerosol. Then you have them also trotting out waste disposal rules for the same reason. A lot of parents also use industrial chemicals from which there is no MSDS data as medical treatments.

This article is completely ridiculous and bunk. So, what this article is saying is, of all the kids that were vaccinated, the kids that remained on schedule are smarter than the kids that strayed from schedule.

Nowhere does it talk about the kids that have never been vaccinated. The study result *in no way* makes a blow to vaccination fears.

Type in "too many too soon" into Google. The third search choice is Age of Autism. This study does in fact hit hard at one of the most idiotic canards of the antivaccination movement.

Actually, I would a lot parents who wave the antivaccintaion flag can't reason and read.

iirc Doctors and other professionals constitute one of the (if not the) largest demographics of parents failing to inoculate their children on schedule or at all. If folks are truly concerned about people those no vaacinating their children it would probably be much more effective to communicate counter-partisan tacticas. Insulting stereotypes, misinformation, and of course aggressive posturing/big brother (see: robrob) really only cause to fuel the issue. While discussing the history of vaacinations may be worthwhile endeavor between sensible people with respect (haha) the broader undercurrent not commonly addressed is who has a right to put something into the body of another and, in America at least, where do the lines between government mandate and parental rights being and end.

These folks remind me of the joke about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.

Sadly, vaccines cannot be given before birth. If the anti-vaccine crowd gets epidemics going again, they can kill newborn babies who haven't had time yet to get the vaccines.

This shouldn't be compared to refusing to wear your seatbelt, but to drunk driving. It's not just a danger to your own children, but to society as a whole, especially those too young to have had the first round of vaccines.

Adding claims like "the few associations that did turn up indicated that the prevailing vaccination schedule actually improves mental performance." which aren't statistically backed up by the data does little to bring the conversation to strictly scientific terms. In fact, I'd argue that suggesting that mental capacity is linked in any way to immunization schedules would only benefit the anti-immunization groups, which probably wasn't the desired effect. Would the tiny 'effect' have been reported if had gone the other way (which it probably had about a 50% chance of doing?)